memorable

Sorry if this one is all over the place rather than the usual story form.

The past 2 nights I have had a similar dream with 2 recurring themes - 1. I had to go back to high school to pick up some credits I missed (I didn't actually miss credits, I think the recurring theme of having to go back is because I took the easy courses - algebra rather than calculus, etc.) and 2. North Korean or Chinese armies were trying to take over the country. Last time I dreamed of an attempted take-over it was Russians. Sometimes I don't know who it is. Sometimes it's American military just trying to put a strangle-hold on the people.

In my dreams both last night and the night before, I started off at school. The two were so similar I will just tell you about last night from here on out:

I am at my old high school. I'm sitting in a writing class and trying to help a friend with some poem she's working on. This time, some of my old classmates are there, too, wanting to pick up extra credits. The teacher is pissed because some of the students are acting up. She's standing there lecturing on behavior and the rules. My friend and I are trying to decide whether we want to walk home or ride the bus. An announcement comes over the intercom. The principal says something along the lines of this: "Please avoid the buses and the front exit if you can. It's happening here, now, too. They're taking kids out at random. Just try to get yourselves home. The buses are dangerous. They're concentrated at the buses." Immediately, I am worried about my husband. I am wondering if they are at his work, or if I will get off this campus alive. I'm afraid I'll never see him again, so I start trying to think of ways to sneak out and get to a vehicle so I can drive to where he is.

There are soldiers all around the school. Most of them are outside. I try to convince a few friends and random kids to come with me, but quietly, and some of them do. We sneak down the back stair well, the one that was blocked off and locked when we were kids. We know that if nothing else, there is a window in the stair well that leads to the side of the school, straight into a little woods where we will come out reasonably far from the school. We make it down the stairs and out the window. We run up to the little woods, but I get there first and hear gunshots as I go. I look behind me and see that some of my companions are down and others have split off and are running back towards campus. I want to continue on my way, but when I look just inside the little woods I can see that they've lined up coffins just inside the woods and I'm completely freaked out. I turn and see one of the teachers from my school, but she's smiling and pointing a gun at me and telling me to get back to the buses or she will take me out herself. She says she's going to let them know I'm a trouble-maker.

She leads me back to the buses at gunpoint. I see that my choir director is doing his best to load kids onto buses safely and let them get off the campus. I jump onto the bus he's on and ask him if they can drop me off just about anywhere there are cars. I am figuring that with everything that's going on, stealing a car wouldn't be a huge deal and I can get to my husband. The bus is just about to pull off when the teacher with the gun gets on. She shoots a little kid right next to me straight through the forehead and then turns her gun on me, but my choir director nudges her just as she fires. For some reason, even though it just killed the kid next to me, this time it's just a BB gun and the BB goes into my eye. It doesn't hurt as badly as I think it will, but I can't see well. I pretend to be in horrible pain, and she decides that I will suffer more this way and gets off the bus.

We finally leave the campus. The driver agrees to take me all the way to my mother-in-laws house, where I decide I will just use her car and go looking for my husband. But before I can leave, the whole neighborhood full of people is asking me to help them, to tell them what to do because they know the soldiers will be there soon. I try to tell them to hurry and gather up any canned goods, weapons, matches, whatever kinds of survival gear they can find and head for the National Forest. I tell them I will be there, but I have to go find my husband first. They say they want to stay and fight, and I try to explain to them that they can't... that they can only hope to escape, that they will never be able to maintain their neighborhood. There are no police or American military to help us. I eventually just have to hope they will listen to me, because I have to go find my husband.

And then, just as I am driving off to do so, I woke up.